Daniel Pinkwater's new novel The Yggyssey online -- MIGHTY IS MY W00T!
Pinkwater may be my single most favorite writer in the entire world -- he's certainly the writer who had the biggest impact on me, through novels like "Alan Medelsohn, the Boy From Mars," collected in his 5 Novels omnibus. Mr Pinkwater, if you're reading this, I owe you one. I owe you several.
And I can't wait to read this book!
The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went ThereWhen I got home from school, my room was full of ghosts..._again!_ They were being invisible, but I could feel the cold spots in the air.
"Did I speak to you ectoplasms about this, or did I not?" I asked the empty room.
Silence. The ghosts were dummying up.
"Rudolph Valentino! I can smell your lousy cigar!"
There was a faint smell of cigar smoke, the trademark of the ghostly Valentino, so I knew he was among them. And my bedspread was rumpled. Probably they were sitting on my bed, playing cards.
"Look, you spectres--this is a young girl's bedroom, not a club! Why do you have to hang out here all the time? You have an eight-story hotel to haunt. There's a complete apartment reserved for your personal use. Why don't you stay there? It's the nicest one in the whole building."
The Yggyssey
MP3 link to Pinkwater reading chapter one
(via Neil Gaiman)
the latest
latest episodes
Yes, Daniel Pinkwater is an idol of mine too. A year or so ago I found Lizard Music and the Snarkout Boys books at a secondhand bookstore... bliss!
How does he keep coming up with this stuff? Harmonious Reality School? Gehghis Khan High School? The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, now inexplicably out of print despite containing lines like "They were great performers—all of them—including the chicken."
I LOVE Daniel Pinkwater too, thanks for letting me know! My favorite is also Alan Mendelson the Boy from Mars, with Boergel as a close second! -Beth
Travelina: I know, these were treasured books from my youth, and when I finally found them again I was pleased that they were as good as I remembered them. Stuff like that shouldn't be out of print!!
#2: I believe the Snarkout Boys books are contained in the two omnibus collections. (5 Novels which Cory linked to above, and 4 Fantastic Novels.)
I'll give The Yggyssey a try. The sort-of-prequel, The Neddiad, started off great but had a rather abrupt and unsatisfactory ending.
My favorite Pinkwater thing ever: The audiobook version of Fishwhistle. These autobiographical vignettes were originally aired on NPR. I used to play the cassette collection for friends in my car; they were generally in severe pain from laughter by the second or third story. Eat pudding.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou. I read _Alan Medelsohn, the Boy From Mars_ in the third grade and promptly forgot the name. For some reason, I've been thinking about it for the past few weeks, but had no idea what it was called. I'm going to go order a copy for *my* third-grader now :-).
Thank goodness for DP. The weird thing is I actually buy the books after reading online.
"Alan Medelsohn, the Boy From Mars," is genius. One of Pinkwater's charms is that his books read as if he starts making up a story on page one, and then keeps going to the end, publishing the whole thing without ever editing or rewriting a thing. Don't know if it's true... he just reads that way.
Thanks for posting all the nice remarks. Apparently I wrote a third in the Neddiad/Yggyssey series, Adventures of a Catwhiskered Girl, just finished and handed in last week. To clarify, The online Yggyssey will continue, adding chapters until the whole book is posted, after which it gets removed. I expect we'll do the same thing, pre-publication, with Catwhiskered. Concurrently, a reading of Borgel is being serialized at pinkwater.com as part of the weekly podcast. There are other goodies too. God, I am nice!
Daniel
Can someone tell me how to pronounce the title of this book? I just can't figure it out!
Dallas..
Yih-gih-see
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/audio/yssy.mp3
Ditto #1. Lizard Music wreaked havoc on my young mind and completely changed my way of seeing the world; so much so that at age 21 I went hunting for a copy to give to my girlfriend. I told her it would 'explain quite a bit.'
I've been an avid Pinkwater fan for many years, and trained my son to be one too. But I discovered he's not just a hell of a great writer (and performer), he's a nice guy too. He was one of the few authors my publisher asked to read my first novel to actually take the time to do so, and he gave it a great blurb for the cover.
This was, naturally, quite a personal coup. ;)
I really wish that Chinwag Theater! (has to be said with the theatrical flourish) was still on air. Such a shame it got killed by some sort of contractual problem.
DP, if you're still reading - thanks.
Igg-ih-see. Narrator is Yggdrasil, Iggy for short. Editor begged and pleaded to make the title Iggyssey, which suggestion I rejected on orthographic and graphic grounds. Also it was noted, (by selfsame editor), that "Neddiad" when googled resulted in nothing but references to the book. Same must be true of Yggyssey.
Some of the archived podcasts at pinkwater.com contain episodes of Chinwag Theater, and there may be more at the pleasure of Webmaster Ed, the impressario. I strongly recommend the podcast, and also the audio archive. Many out-of-print books subjected to my reading. Everything free of charge and with our compliments. Say hello in the "Talk to DP Forum."
Daniel Pinkwater
Mr. Pinkwater, if you're still reading this comment thread--
I want to apologize. In about 1987, while a high school sophomore in Charlotte NC, as a 15-year-old, I shamelessly jacked several of your (Johnathan Quicksilver's) lines for a high school poetry competition-- which I won. Ultimately, however, despite my stolen and illegitimate poetic victory, Julie McAnulty still had no interest in me, and went to the prom with some meathead who wanted to beat me up just/ 'cause I'm/ weird.
In the early 1990's (perhaps to make amends) I tried to name my hardcore punk band The Snarkout Boys, but I was outvoted 3-1 in favor of Precious Moments, which you gotta admit is a pretty righteous HC band name.
Anyway, I look forward to checking out your new joint, as well as introducing my own baby sons to the Pinkwater oeuvre when they're old enough.
Word. Nuff 'spect, n'at.
What were the other 11 Steps, again?
Dang, you got me! The whole book isn't up yet, and it looks like they are only putting up one chapter a week. Guess I'll just have to buy it. :)
#1 and #12 and DP, Lizard Music had an enormous impact on who I am today. Chicken Man!
Remember Dinkey Hocker Shoots Smack, Danny, the Champion of the World, and who was the guy who wrote those gritty stories about kids living in LA at the time?
Once I told a first date about the affect that book had on me, probably should have waited a while before talking about lizards on Roger Mudds shoulder in romantic situations.
Daniel is my wife's favourite author too. She decided to honour this with a glorious tattoo (about 80% finished):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegangeek/sets/72157616000998943/
I just need to say that Yobgorgle was (and still is, just read it a month ago) one of my favorite books. It instilled my love for eating alone is strange cities, and searching libraries for secret reading rooms.
Thank you for writing it, and I still think that large parking garages should be built to unscrew up from underground.
i also loved alan mendohlson the boy from mars, which i credit as being the best "kids" book i read before i started with the more conventionally-aged stuff. i still work towards state 21 and have a strong affinity for green chili.
I've been trying to remember this guy's name for two decades now. And Alex Mendohlson was, again, one of my very favourite books as a kid. I still make green death chili jokes.